Your career history?

Hello
How did you get involved with industrial controls. Was it a conscious decision that you spent time and money preparing to do...or did you fall into it as a result of another career decision? If so, are you happy with it? Do you seeing yourself doing it in another 5 years?

Just pondering some stuff before another long week begins.

Just pondering some stuff before another long week begins.

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The first day is over in my part of the world. Had a great day, finished 2 control panels, did 5 control circuit drawings on the CAD machine, got an order for $360k, not a bad day for a one man band.

Served my apprenticeship in the swingin' 60's as an electrical fitter. This included all sorts of industrial controls, motor winding, trouble shooting, design work (including 11kV), sheet metal work, building control panels and switchboards, installation work (boring - hate site work, except PLC software commissioning), I was doing it as an apprentice.

Went into sales and management for about 25 years. Got tapped on the shoulder by one of my customers to go to a bar-b-q at his place - seven bottles of red wine later I was workinbg for him doing design work, PLC software, commissioning, programming SCADA systems (had never seen one before in my life).

The first time was deliberate the second was not - got conned but loved it. The company closed down, started up on my own at 59 years, best thing I ever did quite frankly. No more brown noses and backstabbers - there is only me and a couple of subbies I use that did the same thing as I did. Life is extremely busy and good. I can now afford the red wine I like to drink.

Actually fell into PLC programming. Had to sell the insidious things as a sales rep and had to learn how to program them so as to look half intelligent in front of some very knowledgable clients.

As for in 5 years, I will be 68 if I live that long. Will I still be doing it? Absolutely if my health is still good. Would be very bored without thinking type work.

I grew up in a machine shop. My first "High Tech" job was running a old CNC burning table. Seeing that I was an awful typist I learned how to link that old burning table to the office to store programs so I wouldn't have to retype everytime.

I then mounted a few components in control panels, helped run conduit, etc.

Then I did my first ladder program. It was an Aromat pocket plc. The program was either 3 or 4 lines long and took me all day

Then being young I decide it was time to do something else, moved, and pretty much went on a 9 month vacation which at the end of realized I would starve if I kept this up. Which was pretty bad considering I worked at a restaurant.

Anyway took a job as a "PLC Programmer" with my experience of my 3 or 4 line Aromat programmer. My first job was complex in my book by todays standards. To keep people from knowing that I didn't know how to do it I worked on the job at night "so no one would be there to bother me." On the third night it just clicked and been here ever since

I kinda fell into it... I'd done some time in a nuke power plant in the navy as an electrician, and I was going to go to school full time after I got out. Unfortunately(I guess) because of the way I bounced around after my discharge, I ended up not being a resident in the state I ended up in, and needed to kill a year so I could afford full time tuition.

I ended up working for a temp agency, placed at a factory in their parts room. They eventually made my position a full time one, and as a result, didn't need a temp for it. The managers I dealt with on a daily basis were impressed by me, and hired me to work on the production floor just to keep me with the company. At this time, I was just going to work until the end of the summer(saving up some money) and then I was going to quit to go to school full time.

At the same time, they were short maintenance people. I had minimal experience in taking things apart and putting them back together, but they were willing to put me in the maintenance department anyway, and train me up. Since this was a pretty significant pay raise, I ended up going to school part time instead, and staying with the company.

My first job area was our secondary packaging area, and they'd just put in a new conveyor system. The controls on the system needed help, and there wasn't anyone else at the plant qualified to work on it... So I started digging through manuals and calling tech support for anything I didn't really understand.

BobB said:

Got tapped on the shoulder by one of my customers to go to a bar-b-q at his place - seven bottles of red wine later I was workinbg for him doing design work, PLC software, commissioning, programming SCADA systems (had never seen one before in my life).

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SEVEN Bottles...........

I need to practise more!

SEVEN Bottles...........

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Between 2 of us. Neither were walking very well and had the next day off work I can assure you. Both were badly under the "affluence of incohol" and had incoholic poisoning for sure!

Generally settle on half a bottle of red a night now. Alledgedly good for the heart - the missus reckons you have to have a heart first.

Tackdriver said:

Hello
How did you get involved with industrial controls.

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It runs in the family....

My das nearly retired now and at present (apart from the newer stuff) he's forgot more than i know!

You can't beat time served in the field!

Tackdriver said:

Hello
How did you get involved with industrial controls.

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In my case, it was preordained. When my father realized that my home planet was going to be destroyed I was only an infant. My father placed me into an interstellar transporter and launched me toward Earth. My transporter was fitted with the composite history of our civilization's technological knowledge. During the long passage through the bleak wastes of interstellar space, my developing brain was subliminally infused with this knowledge so that I could be of benefit to the people of my adopted home planet. I was also trained that I must use my powers for the betterment of mankind. Since my arrival here, I have tried to live up to those ideals.

I know the popular culture has distorted the true account. I can understand why some could come to the conclusion that I am "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound", but I have never held a job as a "mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper". I did, however, work in the pressroom of a pretty good small-town daily.

I know that when I show up at a job site I may seem like a "strange visitor from another planet" with "powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men". It is true that I have "changed the course of mighty rivers". I once wrote the ladder logic to control the inflation of a rubber dam at a hydroelectric site. However, I can only figuratively "bend steel with my bare hands" when I type in the logic controlling a press brake.

That's my story.

All the best,
Clark

I was studying Electrical Engineering but by and large had no idea what niche I would be able to fit into. I had absolutely no interest in microchip and circuit board design and I wasn’t really all that interested in power generation either, or anything else most people typically think of when the think of Electrical Engineers. I was still early on in the EE program and didn’t have any idea of all the career possibilities that were open to me either.



It was 1983 and I was putting myself thru school so I took an evening job running a CNC machine for a small manufacturing company near the university. This was my first exposure to CNC but the boss figured that if this guy is studying EE he can figure out how to program a CNC. One of the CNC machines broke down and they didn’t have anyone who could fix it and didn’t have the resources to bring in a tech, so the machine sat for a while. After a couple of weeks I decided to take a crack at it while the other machine was running a long job, so I got out the manual and went thru the troubleshooting procedure. It occured to me that by swapping a few boards around I could move the problem to another axis and isolate it. Eventually I swapped the encoders and I moved the problem. So I dug around in a box of junk and found another encoder and put it on the machine, and viola, problem solved. The boss came in the next morning to find the machine running and he was quite pleased to say the least. A few months later the boss made a deal on truckload of used machines, he got what he wanted plus a couple of other machines, one of which (a grinding machine) was total trash, the controls were completely shot. It was very old and used cams to control what the machine did next.. He decided to see what I could do with this machine, so he gave me a budget and I went to work. I tore it down to the iron and cleaned it up, reground the ways, replaced bearings, and reassembled it. He said I had to make it easier to set up, no more cams, so I put a GE PLC on it and the boss was pleased enough. In reality, the control system was a total piece of ****, I was a kid with virtually zero electrical experience, but it was enough to whet my appetite for PLCs.

Man of Steel

Look!
up in the sky
is it a bird?
is it a plane?

it's.......Steve Bailey?

Hard to say really. Studied science at uni, changed to mechanical engineering, then mechatronics. Designed and built a high speed mobile robot for my thesis, which whet my taste for automatic control. Worked for a few years designing recording studios (including a couple in the Sydney opera house)and did some work on theatres and concert halls but decided the field was too small to specialize in too early and I wanted to learn more about software engineering. Took my current job because it promised a lot of international travel, and I have not been disappointed

I WAS KIDNAPPED, FORCED INTO PLC SLAVE LABOR !!!

Actually I was in the field service dept. here at a custom machine builder. When our in house engr quit. They got me in here under the "Help Us Out until we find someone" Pretense.
Well they never did bother to "Find someone" LOL....

I have an Engineering degree from 1985, But I had no experience at all in this dept. The most I had done in the field was to maybe change a Bit from NO to NC or something simple. Well they said You will fugure it out! And by the way we just sold a 39 Axis servo-Setup machine. You will need to figure that out as well.....
So I started setting up classes and got in bed with GE-Fanuc quikly. And Geezz ; For the last two years I have been in "Self Learn Mode" Doing both PC control and PLC control. As well as Auto-Cad electrical.

HOWEVER: It has now evolved into an ADDICTION!!!!